In Between the Lines
by princessofthedeadsheep
Summary: Headcanons for the Sly Cooper series, written by me and sometimes with my lovely friend Ella (as indicated by the authors note) What is Sly's secret? What goes on between him and Carmelita? Read to find out!
1. Sleep Well

**This is a headcanon that I came up with after reading a fic that was abandoned. In it, Sly kept sleeping on top of the police station, and Carmelita would chase him away. I asked myself, what if that went a little differently? This piece is one of my favorite little headcanons, I hope you enjoy. **

**Disclaimer: Alas, I don't own Sly Cooper, Sanzaru and Sucker Punch do.**

Sly couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Clockwerk staring back at him. Clockwerk killing his friends, Clockwerk killing Carmelita, it even brought back the memories of when his parents had died. They all had nightmares after Clockwerk, but Sly's were the worst.

He woke up after every nightmare and checked the house, checked on his friends, made sure they were safe. He didn't sleep after that. He stayed up for the rest of the night, usually in the kitchen, staring out the window where the lights of Paris sparkled in the night. When either Bentley or Murray had a nightmare as well, they'd join Sly, drink something warm, and then go back to bed.

They worried about Sly, but he refused to talk about it, and in his stubborn way, insisted he was fine. Still, Sly obviously wasn't doing very well and there didn't seem to be anything they could do about it.

By the end of the first month, checking that his gang was safe wasn't enough. He needed to see Carmelita. He started leaving in the middle of the night and going out to find Carmelita. He could only relax when he saw her, safe and well, at home or at her office. He would settle where he could see her, and often found himself dozing, dreamlessly, wherever he was watching her from. He did this so often that though Bentley and Murray still worried, they became used to waking to find Sly had disappeared, and would appear again sometime throughout the day. After a particularly bad nightmare, Sly snuck into Carmelita's office through the window. Sneaking in was as easy as it was the first time, and Sly was able to do it even in his extremely sleep deprived state. He wasn't supposed to actually go into her office at all, but he wanted to see her... to imprint on his memory the solidity of her liveliness. Once in her office, he curled in her office chair, breathing in her scent. The seat was still warm, and Sly ended up falling asleep right there in her chair.

A little while after Carmelita trudged in. She hadn't been able to sleep the night before because _she_ was having nightmares of the Clockwerk incident, and now she was being forced to work overtime. She was exhausted that day, which was a stroke of luck for Sly, because it meant that Carmelita's ability to process had been greatly compromised. Even though she clearly saw that Sly Cooper was in her chair, the only thing that registered in her mind was that there was something in her chair. She moved that something under her desk, and when that something curled around her legs, she found herself feeling both comfortable and cheered, and so she didn't think much of it. She got to work and actually found herself more focused then she had been before.

She didn't notice Sly until she went to go get herself a snack from the vending machine in the hall- both to get moving and because she was hungry- and when she got back, something kick started in her mind when she bumped into something under her desk and looked down. At Sly.

It finally clicked in her mind that Sly Cooper had been sleeping in her office since before she'd gotten there. She was about to do what she should have done hours ago and have him wake up in one of the holding cells when she noticed he'd started shivering. He moaned, and it was such a painful sound that it made her hesitate. Then he gave out a low cry of "No! Leave her alone! Carmelita!" and she found herself lost. She put her hand on his head and hesitantly started to try and calm him down.

"It's okay Ringtail, I'm fine, I'm right here." She watched in fascination as he seemed to become more settled in sleep. He did not wake up. She simply didn't have the heart to arrest him, looking at him like this. He was so vulnerable, his face showed strain and she could tell he'd been sleeping less than she had. She settled back into her office chair, deciding she really did need more sleep if she was acting this soft. Sly slept well into the next day lying at Carmelita's feet, his nightmares held at bay by the comfort of touch. She let him be.

Sly woke up shocked to find himself at Carmelita's feet in her office. Hesitantly he pulled himself out from under her desk, staring at her the whole time. She pretended she didn't see him. He went to the window of her office, then looked back at her. She still didn't look at him, though a small smile did make its way onto her face. Sly left, and she shook her head, still smiling, wishing she didn't feel slightly cold now.

After that, Sly would sneak into Carmelita's office whenever she was there and he had a nightmare. Other times, she'd find him on the chair in her bedroom. Regardless of where she found him, she would ignore him unless she was about to leave. Then, she would wake him up, sending him on his way. They never talked about it, and whenever she was chasing after him she did so with the same gusto. They never gave any hint to those moments, though they continued to happen throughout the years. No matter how angry Carmelita was at him, he was always welcome to sleep near her when he was having trouble doing so.


	2. Sly's Little Secret

**This lovely piece was co-authored by myself and my friend Ella-Arya on tumblr. We decided to post it other places, just for the fun of it. If you would like to find her, her tumblr is _sly-fcking-cooper _and she is a wonderful writer and she loves Sly as much as I do!**

**Disclaimer: Neither of us own Sly Cooper, sadly.**

Sly hid it from the guys, that in his backpack, at the very bottom, lay a small, weathered teddy bear.

One eye was loose, kept on with obvious repeated use of hot glue. His smile was crooked and he had messy patchwork stitches all over, standing out black and white over the brown fur going brittle- even Sly was prepared to try his hand at sewing to keep the bear in one piece.

It went everywhere with him, on every heist. If Bentley needed Sly's backpack to add a new gadget, Sly would sneak the bear out and stuff it into the pouch on his thigh temporarily. He'd whisper an apology to the bear for squashing him whenever he returned him to the roomy backpack, giving him a little kiss on his head before gently settling him in again.

From his father, he had the cane, and the Thievius Racconus, a legacy that he had learned to live and appreciate, but this is all that's left of his mother. She gave it to him as a gift on his seventh birthday, exactly a year before she died.

Sly didn't talk about his mother. Bentley didn't know who his parents were, and Murray never talked about anything he could remember before coming to the orphanage. Sly already had so much more, as far as parents were concerned, than either of his friends. But even beyond that…he remembered his mother. She had been a reserved woman. She was bold; but still loving and kind, however part of what made her a good thief's wife was that she often didn't give much of herself away. Sly shared and glorified his father's memory, the Cooper legacy, but he would rather his mother remain in his memory, brought up forever in the memory of her scent and her gentle loving ways that he always remembered whenever he thought of his bear.

His father had given him pride, a sense of self, a person to be with the Cooper legacy. His mother had given him love and care and a solid belief in treating a woman right, in being a gentleman. Through her, Sly had learned that beneath every female, there is always a well-intentioned woman doing what she feels is right, despite the fact that these morals may occasionally be twisted by those other than herself. Sly's mother had given him comfort and a sense of home. He knew he'd never feel it again without his teddy bear.

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It was a complete and total accident, and Sly was very lucky it happened at the very end of the heist, right before he got in the van, or else he might have actually ended up arrested because of it. Carmelita still wasn't present for the heist- she'd usually have turned up by now, which meant that Sly and the gang were going to be home free- or so they thought. Towards the very end of his escape, Sly had gotten whacked by one of the guards' heavy duty pistols, the sharp edge of which had slashed open his backpack.

Half the contents had fallen, as well as a good chunk of backpack fabric. Almost in slow motion to Sly's eyes they went straight into a mud puddle. Sly had never knocked out a guard faster- how dare that guard mess with his property?

Sly rooted around in what was left of his backpack. All that remained was a few smoke bombs, a scratched photo of Sly and Carmelita dancing together Bentley had taken back in India, and the paraglider mechanism. The teddy bear wasn't there, and worst of all, it most likely lay in the thick mud at his feet.

Panicked, Sly scrambled around in the mud, his gloves becoming thick, brown and heavy. He found alarm clocks that he hadn't even used for years, some dark glasses from an old disguise and the crinkled wrapper of that so-called "world-famous" chocolate they stole back in Munich, all of which he tossed aside to try and find the precious bear.

To his horror, Sly spotted the bear: it looked grubbier than ever, the mud beginning to congeal onto the fur. He seized it, then tried to scramble together his other possessions: gadgets that Bentley would be furious if he lost, a small photo that they'd taken in Outback Australia, and his spare gloves- but by throwing these back into the bag he only made more things fall out of it. Sly panicked more, knowing that anything he picked up would be covered in mud and most likely ruined, but his biggest issue was that he couldn't let Bentley and Murray see his most prized possession.

Sly heard Bentley yell from the van. "Sly!" he hollered. "What are you doing? We're on a mission, we've gotta get out of here!"

"Hold up!" Sly shouted back, anxiety ridden, holding the bear under his arm so that it couldn't possibly fall again. He clutched the leftovers in what once was a whole backpack against his chest and darted into the van, collapsing onto the backseat and simultaneously releasing all of his possessions, including the bear, onto Bentley's lap and computer. As Murray released the engine, the G-Force they experienced caused his belongings to scatter themselves around the van, leaving only the bear and a single glove on Bentley's lap.

"Uh, Sly?" Bentley asked. "We were only meant to steal the diadem from the Prince…"

"Yeah, I got it!" Sly gabbled, pulling out the tiara from his pouch, trying to divert Bentley's attention so that he could take the bear off his lap.

"So why," Bentley began, "have you also been stealing from small children?" Bentley waved the teddy bear in the air, using the claws on his wheelchair, well away from Sly's reach.

Sly flinched.

"I didn't! Stop waving him around like that!" Sly made a leap for the teddy bear but Bentley swiftly lifted it further out of Sly's limits. The rest of the stuff from Sly's backpack was rolling around the back of the van, but Sly didn't care about any of it- the bear had more value than all of his other possessions in that bag combined.

Murray had started driving on instinct as soon as the back door had shut, and now glanced back, frowning at the commotion. "What even is that old thing?"

"It's not important! Come on Bentley, give it back!"

"If it isn't important, then why do you want it back so badly?" Bentley asked inquisitively. He frowned at Sly, who was acting very oddly. His entire body was tense and twitching, his tail flicking back and forth, all signs of agitation from the raccoon. Then he realized that Sly was trying not to growl. Alarmed, Bentley jumped when Sly spoke again.

"Give. Him. Back." The growl leaked into Sly's voice, and it was only the third time Bentley had seen Sly this angry. Bentley was taken so off guard he didn't consciously realize he'd moved his mechanical arm back into Sly's reach in his surprise. Sly moved so fast that Bentley hadn't had the time to blink before Sly was on the other side of the van, the bear held securely and safely in his hands. Sly felt all of his anger drain away as he checked his bear for damage. The mud was beginning to stiffen so Sly grabbed the bottom of his shirt and began to pat ("Never rub, rubbing only makes the stain set faster" he remembered his mother telling him when she'd been cleaning up a spill on the carpet once).

Sly ignored the tension, the questioning looks and the juddering movement of the van as he focused solely on caring for his bear. He only relaxed when most of the mud was gone and he knew he could easily get him completely clean when they returned home.

"Sly?" Murray asked calmly, not wanting to alarm his friend. Sly's head jerked up as he now realized the van had stopped and both his friends were staring at him. Now that his panic over his bear had subsided, embarrassment began to seep through.

"Hey guys… why'd we stop?" he asked them nervously. He felt his skin heat up in a blush under his fur. Bentley and Murray exchanged worried looks.

"You alright Sly?" Murray asked, his tone careful. "You seemed a little…panicked, there."

"Yeah, yeah- I'm fine. Shouldn't we be going back?" Sly tried again. His tail had come around his waist (covering the side where his bear could be seen), a defensive pose which told Bentley and Murray that their friend was not being truthful with them. Deciding they would get nowhere if they allowed Sly to dance around the crux of the issue, Bentley jumped right in.

"Sly, why exactly do you have a teddy bear?" Sly froze for a minute before humiliation had really set in. Once it had, he found himself hard pressed not to cringe into a ball. He still flinched slightly when he realized… of all the things for them to see… really, even his secret pictures of Carmelita weren't this embarrassing.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sly tried and failed to keep his voice from rising in pitch.

"You mean you don't currently have a ragged teddy bear in your possession?" Murray asked, before realizing it was a brutal mistake. Sly bristled.

"He's not ragged! I mean-" Sly cringed further into himself. "Don't worry about it."

Murray instantly felt bad. "No, he's not- he's just a little…grubby…" he insisted, trying to resolve the situation and realizing he wasn't improving it in the slightest.

"Sly…" Bentley's voice was gentle and soothing. "Murray and I are your friends… you know we won't make fun of you." Murray nodded insistently as Sly blushed harder, feeling hotter by the second, the flush becoming visible under his fur.

"I know." Sly muttered. "But really, it's nothing."

"If it really was nothing, you wouldn't care about showing us." Murray pointed out. "Sly, whatever it is, it's alright, we won't mind at all." Sly rarely looked so vulnerable even in front of his own gang, the friends he'd known for most of his life. Slowly Sly turned back to them and revealed his bear.

"This is my…my teddy bear." Sly couldn't look at them. Instead, he brushed the top of the bear's head with his fingers, using it as comfort for himself. "I keep him in backpack." Since they understood what this was costing their friend, both Bentley and Murray leaned forward to look at their friend's bear with curiosity.

"It looks like you've had him a while." Bentley said, studying the extensive stitching and the brittle fur.

"Uh… yeah." Sly muttered, fidgeting slightly. "M-my mother gave him to me for my seventh birthday."

"Your mother?" Bentley asked, startled. The same expression was echoed on Murray's face. They heard about Sly's father through the Cooper legacy constantly, but this was the first time they could actually remember him mentioning his mother.

"Yeah." Sly's voice was soft. "I told her I was too old to be seen with a teddy bear and she said 'then make sure he's unseen.' She was amazing. She always had an answer to, well, everything. She and dad were quite the pair." His voice cracked. "This is all I have left of her." Sly sniffed hard, trying to hold back any further emotion. This was beyond what Murray could handle. He grabbed Sly into a huge hug, which wasn't returned, but also wasn't pushed away, just accepted.

"Sly, why didn't you tell us?" Bentley was baffled at Sly keeping this from them for so long.

"My mother was a reserved person. It didn't feel right to share her. And…" but Sly trailed off, refusing to speak any more.

"Because Murray and I don't have mothers. You didn't want to rub in our faces that you had a family, even if you lost it." Sly didn't have to respond; his guilty look was enough to confirm his thoughts. "Sly, it's okay, you can talk about your family. I'm happy you had one. We both are."

"Yeah little buddy." Murray said a little tearfully. "There's nothing wrong with missing them."

"I know. I just feel bad about it. I practically flaunt the Cooper family legacy around you guys. It really isn't fair of me. Plus, it's kind of embarrassing. I mean I'm way too old to have an obsessive need to care for my teddy bear." He pushed his head into his hands. "It's pathetic." Murray and Bentley frowned at each other, and Bentley rolled forward and placed a hand on his friend's back.

"Sly, it isn't pathetic. Do you think either Murray or I blame you for clinging to your family heritage? You have a fascinating family history and you have every right to be proud of that!" Sly's eyes peered up from under his hand, and looked searchingly into Bentley's.

"I like being a part of your heritage!" Murray said. Sly looked at him surprised. "It's, like, totally awesome that we're now a part of such an important part of history. We're a part of the Cooper thieves, even though we aren't actually Coopers!" Murray grinned at Sly's expression. "'The Murray' is proud to be a part of the Cooper Gang!"

"And it'd be nothing without him," Sly smiled, finally looking straight at Murray. "Or you, Bentley."

Both Bentley and Murray grinned simultaneously. Sly was already looking better. "You're our best friend," Bentley said with a smile. "And we're happy for you." Once they saw Sly had truly relaxed, they settled in as they normally would and Murray pulled the van back into the street.

"How about you tell us about your mother on the drive home Sly?" Murray offered Sly a smile through the rearview mirror and he knew he'd said the right thing when Sly leaned forward and drawled "Well once when I was five or so…"

They didn't really talk about Sly's mother again after that, but it was through their actions that they showed respect for her. Bentley designed Sly a new backpack which protected his teddy bear through a specially made pouch that should be "pretty much invincible" which had earned him a rather warm hug from Sly. Murray spent a night hunched over in the back of the van trying his best to construct a tiny chair for the bear. After some persuasion from Bentley, Murray finally bashfully offered the wobbly chair to Sly, but Sly insisted it was one of the best gifts he'd ever received. On a few quieter occasions, Sly even allowed his bear out of his newly designed backpack to sit on his slightly unsteady throne, proudly alongside the Thievius Raccoonus and his cane: a symbol of both Sly's maternal and paternal heritage.

In the end, Sly was happy he'd told his friends the truth.


	3. Another Loss

**This happens sometime around the time the epilogue does. **

**Disclaimer: I wish I owned Sly Cooper**

**Now, I'm only going to say this once: _W_A_RNING WARNING MISCARRIAGE AHEAD_**

It was raining outside, a furious storm that matched her mood and reminded her of the Seine where even now, they found pieces of La Paradox's blimp.

Carmelita had known she was pregnant before everything had gone to hell. She was going to tell Sly... and then he'd gone back to thieving and the whole time traveling business... and then he was gone. He was gone.

She was a mess. She didn't show it often, because Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox did not show the world her pain... but she felt it. She could barely eat, she could barely sleep... and now, here she was, sobbing on her kitchen floor, blood surrounding her.

She had just gotten up from not being able to sleep to get some coffee to start the day. Then the cramps had started. They were bad, and she didn't really understand what was happening at first. Then she'd spotted the blood dripping onto the floor from under her nightgown. Then she knew.

There was nothing she could do now. There was no way to fix this. So she just started sobbing uncontrollably as the last thing from their life together that seemed pure disappeared. She knew it was her fault. She hadn't been eating, she hadn't been sleeping, how could she expect anything to grow inside her while that was happening? She couldn't look at the blood. Once her tears dried out, she pushed herself up, grabbed the phone in her kitchen and called in sick. She then walked gingerly to the bathroom, where she washed the blood off of her. She was still bleeding. Still would, for a little bit yet. She dragged herself to her kitchen and managed to clean the blood off of the floor. As it turned out, there wasn't as much as she had thought. that didn't bring her any comfort. A few tears fell down her cheeks as she cleaned.

She settled in for a miserable day watching the rain beat down on her windows, wondering how Sly would have reacted to this. She imagined him comforting her, telling her everything was going to be alright, and they could try again.

It only made things worse.


	4. Oil Hearts

Murray didn't talk about his parents. It wasn't that he didn't remember them- because he did, in the recesses of his mind, when he wanted to- it was that he simply didn't feel the need to talk about them.

His parents hadn't been the smartest people, but they had been skilled at one thing- mechanics. They were the Mechanics for a local gang and had been shot in a gang war. They hadn't gotten away in time, and had been the only casualties of the incident, mostly because neither would leave the other, no matter what happened. If it was to happen to one, it was to happen to the other. His mother had been shot first, and his father had held on to her as she died, just before he was shot. They died within a minute of each other, hands gripped tightly and strangely unmarred by blood. Instead, they were the black color of oil that had stained their hands during their years of work.

Murray's parents hadn't been very loving toward him, but they were not necessarily affectionate in general, so that was really just how they were, or at least he thought so. He had no memory of them ever holding him or kissing him or even giving him a simple hug on the way to school. He remembered one or two pats on the head, the shoulder, the back. That was how they showed him their affection. He had been as smart as they, really, and that had not surprised anyone. It did surprise them to find that Murray did not appear to like Engineering or cars much at all. He seemed to find them disconcerting, for some reason.

Murray had been at the gang's "day care" while they'd gone out on their mission. The gang hadn't really wanted him- he didn't have the skills, they thought, that had made his parents useful. Murray had been four at the time, old enough to understand what was happening to a certain extent, and as he grew older and looked back, he came to understand more. His parents hadn't really been accepted in the gang, and therefore, neither was he. His dislike of mechanics didn't last very long after he landed in the orphanage. It began shortly after he found it difficult, one day, to recall the image of his mother's face. He had panicked, and wishing to hold onto her, had found some broken objects no one would miss. Using some of the tricks his mother had showed him, he found himself remembering her more clearly than before, and that was what began his love of all things mechanical.

He didn't mind so much anymore that the gang hadn't wanted him. He had Sly and Bentley after all, what more could he need? He knew neither Sly nor Bentley would care about his parent's shady dealings, but for some reason, he felt the need to keep them to himself. Unlike Sly, he didn't have a legacy to keep, a reputation to recover. He had the memory of two outcasts trying to find their place, who loved each other so much they had died in each other's arms, refusing to leave each other's side.


	5. Birthday-less

Sly did not celebrate his birthday. It was that simple. He didn't tell anyone -not even Bentley and Murray- what it was. Ms. Puffin was glad to keep him from celebrating, so that was never a problem. Part of what showed Sly's burgeoning thieving skills were shown by his ability to hide anything that had his date of birth on it. Being forced to turn them in for school really made Sly learn when to be picky about where he filled it out. Bentley and Murray tried for years to get Sly to tell them, but he finally snapped and told them he wasn't going to tell them, and he wanted them to respect his privacy. Reluctantly, they agreed.

Sometimes, when Bentley got angry at Sly, or when they were joking around, one of them would say something like "For goodness sake Sly, you're twenty years old!" Sly would cut in calmly, "Actually, I'm twenty one now." And that was the only way that either of them even discovered his age, through the offhand comments Sly would make. They tried to get Sly to talk about why, but shortly after they stopped asking for his birthday, they stopped asking why, because Sly wasn't saying.

It wasn't until they met Tennessee that Bentley finally figured it out. Tennessee made an offhand comment about how every Cooper inherited the _Thevious Raccoonous_ when they eight years old. It hadn't clicked until later that night when Bentley was thinking through their plan. It had drifted in, as though his subconscious had been thinking on it all day. Sly was eight when he arrived at the orphanage. Sly's parents died the night he was supposed to get the _Thevious Raccoonous. _Sly refused to celebrate -or even mention most of the time- his birthday.

Bentley sat back, stunned. All this time, they had wondered... and the answer had been right there. And then he imagined what it would be like to have your parents murdered in front of you, your legacy stolen from you, on your _birthday_ of all days. He looked over to where Sly was sleeping and felt like he understood his friend even better now than he ever had before.


End file.
